Bitcoin Forum

(Topic is originally from the Newbies forum.)

I'm sure that by now most of you know about Ripple, an idea created by Ryan Fugger for an open, decentralized payment network. It allows users to route payments through open, arbitrary trust networks just like the Internet allows for packets to be routed through the same. If you want to read more about it, you may do so at the following addresses:

http://archive.ripple-project.org/
https://ripple.com/wiki/ (I do not agree with all aspects of this implementation, as I will explain.)

I'm sure that many of you also know that the currently dominant implementation of Ripple is one made by a company called OpenCoin Inc., and that using this implementation requires the use of a centrally governed currency known as XRP (or "Ripples"). Ripples were not created by mining or any other decentralized process, but rather by OpenCoin all at once in what could be conceived of as a 100% (100 billion XRP) "pre-mine". Users of Ripples, which are required for account reserve requirements (300 XRP per account) and to pay transaction fees (decided by valdiators), only have OpenCoin's word that 50% (50 billion XRP) of the Ripples in existence will be distributed fairly and freely to users. The remaining 50% will be used by OpenCoin to fund their operations. 20% has already been given to developers.

If for whatever reason this doesn't seem unfair to you, replace "Ripple" with "SolidCoin" and you'll get the general idea. OpenCoin's Ripple is basically a payment network that requires a SolidCoin equivalent (though even SolidCoin had less pre-mined units) to use it. No alternative is allowed. There's nothing wrong with programmers making money from their craft, but when you consider how much evangelism, word-spreading, and programming of websites and services goes into making an alternative currency viable, 50% for the originators alone is too much, not to mention the security/morality issues involved in one entity having so much control over the network.

OpenCoin has tried many tactics to silence criticism of this aspect of Ripple, from claiming that XRP is not a currency (and eventually admitting that it is) to keeping the Ripple server code closed-source so that nobody can fork Ripple to a system that doesn't require XRP. Some have been swayed, but many have not. I've been debating the issue myself with JoelKatz on their forums, which you can read here: https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=872

(I will admit that some of my earlier comments in this topic are unnecessarily confrontational and unproductive. I have been following the Ripple project for years, so I was angry at the idea that somebody had hijacked it. I hope that you will read the whole debate, particularly the latter parts, before judging the merit of our respective viewpoints.)

To me, the time for debate is over. That's why I've created this thread to discuss the creation of a fair alternative to Ripple, one that does not use XRP or any other centralized currency/component. The basic idea of Ripple as imagined by Ryan Fugger is good, but XRP is not. If you agree, then this thread is for you.

The basic protocol of OpenCoin's Ripple is sound and well-documented on their wiki (hopefully making it easy to replicate). The real issue is replacing XRP with a different mechanism for controlling spam. I have considered five different alternatives, listed below:

1. Instead of using/destroying XRP to pay transaction fees, users are allowed to pay transaction fees in the IOUs created by gateways, whether they be Bitcoin IOUs, dollar IOUs, or whatever by distributing them to the validators (that are on the user's unique node list), perhaps only a small, random subset of them, or even another random user in a "transaction fee lottery". It doesn't really matter where the fee goes, only that the user is required to pay it to prevent spam. This is somewhat more complicated than using only one currency, but has the advantage of allowing the user total freedom in choosing which currency they transact in. As a result, this is my current favorite solution. If these IOUs are supposed to have value, then not allowing transaction fees to be paid in them is pretty hypocritical.

2. Instead of only having one arbitrary currency (XRP), allow anybody to create their own XRP-equivalent. If a user finds the distribution of one currency inadequate, then they can create their own. This still restricts the user to using "pre-mined" currencies, but at least gives them a choice of which pre-miner they think is fairly distributing theirs. OpenCoin could even win in this scenario, if they allowed such competition.

3. Allow users to pay transaction fees directly in existing cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin or Bitcoin, either by destroying them (sending them to an invalid address) or distributing them as detailed above. This would require that at least some of the validators that an existing cryptocurrency user plans on using be connected to that cryptocurrency's blockchain. Validators that aren't connected to a particular blockchain can still service users that don't plan on using its corresponding cryptocurrency. This has the advantage of attracting the existing cryptocurrencies' communities and promoting their value by making another service for them to be used on. It's win-win.

4. Replace XRP with a fairly mined "RippleCoin" or equivalent. This restricts the user to only being able to pay transaction fees in one currency, but at least makes that currency more fairly distributed in a decentralized way. This is my least favorite solution, since it introduces a computationally wasteful proof-of-work system into the scheme. It would also require debate about block intervals, block rewards, hashing algorithms, and all of the usual points of contention. Though this could be potentially combined with idea #2 to allow multiple "RippleCoin" variants.

5. Eliminate transaction fees and use some other method, such as HashCash, to combat spam. This would be the best solution, if it could be done. Ideas about this are welcome. Though our best chance of competing with Ripple is to compensate validators in some way, which Ripple does not do.

Combinations of these solutions or others could be used. Any other issues with OpenCoin's Ripple protocol that need to be addressed are also up for consideration.

Programmers, developers, website designers, and other talented people will be needed to make this system competitive with the existing Ripple implementation. I would like to start a Bitcoin/Litecoin/etc. donation fund for the purpose of developing this, but since I am a newer user I feel that it would be more appropriate for a well-known forum member to take charge of that aspect. I've seen some of them express similar sentiments, so I'm sure that one will step up. OpenCoin has continually delayed the release of Ripple's full source code, so waiting for them to do so before starting on a fork is a bad idea. They have made it their intention to prevent forks of Ripple from being viable by delaying the source code's release.

The last thing that must be addressed is a name for this new Ripple implementation. Here are some ideas that I've had: "Fripple" (short for "fair ripple"), "Nipple" (short for "new ripple"), "Wave", "Flutter", "Flow", and "Mesh". "Flutter" is my favorite, but ideas are welcome.

This thread is not for debating about OpenCoin's Ripple or XRP. If you see no problem with it, then you are free to use it. This thread is only for productive posts about the creation of a Ripple alternative. Thank you.

It seems like you could just take Ripples strengths and perhaps make it so it isn't pre-mined and it would ultimately be superior to bitcoin.  Actually there are probably some other alt coins that are superior to bitcoin but it has first mover advantage and most all of the attention.

I am primarily interested in Ripple as a payment network, not a currency. I think that a separation between the two is most advantageous.

I think there is value to having programmers working on Ripple, but once it's done it's mostly done. That's not worth 20% of the entire economy (what they keep ). They should have done a combo of mining + non mining - 50% is mined , 40% given away 10% kept

Users have universally rejected pre-mining, regardless of the proportion. The goal is to eliminate the need for a centralized component such as XRP, not change its payout structure.

A lot of people are paying big bucks for ripples, they don't seem to care about it...  (I don't understand why)

Some people paid big bucks for SolidCoins. Ripple is also vastly more effective at hiding its seedy underbelly. They have good PR people.

rippln.com

Can you explain some more about this?

sign that, explain it please.

I don't know much but I'm watching it grow fast on facebook I will send you invite if you like pm with your name and email
https://www.facebook.com/Rippln?fref=ts

Ripple is too complicated anyways - can't make head or tail out of it.

Let's just say its a great thing for all of us and none of you even know it yet

I tried looking at their site but it seemed like a whole lot of marketing mumbo jumbo and not a real explanation of what it is. I don't think it's what we're looking for.

yea what do you think their marketing for bud? maybe its a social network open source peer-to-peer payment system...sound familiar? Not like I know though...do your reading

So it's basically Ripple over Facebook? I don't think relying on a centrally controlled social network is a good idea.

what if you could exchange money over facebook into any currency for free well freeish .00001 or whatever it is that your little heart desires welcome to rippln

I would still say that Facebook is an inappropriate platform. Furthermore, your spiel makes me think that what you're advertising is nothing more than a Facebook plugin that implements OpenCoin's protocol. Once again, I don't think this is what we're looking for.

lol!! rippln has nothing to do with facebook other then both facebook and rippln are going to be social networks....same with tweeter, linkedin, pinterest, myspace, and so on....

Ugh, a viral marketing campaign and a mobile website full of technobabble, RippIn makes me feel nauseous and that was before the "Facebook money" references that seem to be everywhere on the net. If you're going to hijack a decent discussion thread with this obviously corporation-backed new enterprise then at least tell us a good amount about how it offers a "fair alternative to Ripple". There is some incentive to referring new users to the program, so your approach, unless elaborated on, seems rather ingenuous.

I honestly don't think there is a "fair alternative to Ripple"  just going by the facts I have read on ripple and trying to put 2 and 2 together it would make scene to have a social network open source peer-to-peer payment system. There is no incentive for me offering rippln to anyone only that one day it could be as big as tweeter or facebook and people are trading XPRs for a lot more then what I have been paying for them over the last few days

Creating that alternative, sans XRP, is the point of this thread.

Why? The goal is to build an open source payment network that anyone in the world can use, that allows people to send money around the internet for practically nothing, and that allows people to store value in a non-inflating currency. Once we have done that do you really care about alternatives?

people are crazy to buy ripple coins or whatever they are, a community fork will be launched as soon as they release the source code, and if they don't release the source it will just never take off

anyway I believe more in the future of LTC than Ripple (RIP)

Ripple will fail for a simple reason.

$100 in debt is not worth $100. Its worth less.

Aside from the knee slapping joke that is XRP.

Its a scam

http://mlmblog.net/site/2010/08/izigg-scam-will-the-ftc-step-in-and-file-a-lawsuit-to-shut-this-down.html (http://mlmblog.net/site/2010/08/izigg-scam-will-the-ftc-step-in-and-file-a-lawsuit-to-shut-this-down.html)

Just cause he started 2 companies doesn't make it a scam izigg was a great marketing company and anyone in it should be happy to have learned what they did...That said ripple has a strong economic incentive to distribute the coins as fair as they can. They want to get as many people to have coins as possible. This is what will make the network viable. It doesn't help them to hoard all the coins if no one is using the network. If you don't believe they have their own economic interests in mind then just ignore rippln and just use the XRPs to send around to other currencies. If you just do that you really shouldn't care what happens XRPs.

Ripple is in BETA, it is subject to change, let's not get the pitchforks just yet!

I'm pretty sure most people don't grasp what Ripple is. It's not money in the sense that BTC is money. It is not a store of wealth at all. Their is really no point in speculating in XRPs. That's not what it's for.

If there is a scam it is that OpenCoin used the "Coin" suffix to confuse BitCoiners. It's a self-promotion scam.

They have already stated their intention not to change this particular aspect of Ripple so criticizing it is appropriate.


If there's no point in speculating in XRPs then why is that OpenCoin's business model?

When a new decentralized currency/payment network is developed the very 1st question should be asked (and answered):

How to reach a consensus?

So, how r u going to reach a consensus when different nodes contradict each other?

It is not speculating in the sense that BTC is speculating.
XRP's already have a pre-planned *FIXED* value. We just don't know what it is. That is why I was asking for somebody to send me XRP. Then we would see how much is MISSING.

In other words, what is their transaction FEE in XRP.
They already told us their transaction fee in USD ($0.0001).
If I could see the the transaction fee in XRP, the FIXED rate is simple division.

If anyone is interested. My ripple address is:

rHUipvsbBKagmU5qxFYCVfRoHKkBaYztm2

I'll send the coins right back. That is indeed the point of the exercise.

What do you mean? On price? Or on transaction history?

Transaction history. Balances. Ownership. Whatever.

Way back in 2010 I proposed that BitCoin's intention was to be a Global kind of LETS system.


Now, Ripple is proposing itself to be THE global exchange trading system. I think that has significant consequences for BitCoin.

Oh, it turns out that problem is pretty easy. They've already solved it. You will never notice a single consensus problem with Ripple. That's what the XRP are for.

Watch the facebook page.... https://www.facebook.com/Rippln  click the likes and look when it started getting promoted 2 weeks ago already 12k likes and 11k people talking about it...having no idea what rippln is they just know its going to be the "next big thing" and invite all your friends look at them now....rippln has hit 200k people just waiting for an app they have no idea about and what it is capable of...

What is Rippin? Is that a project of yours?

Weren't they paying people in XRP for likes?
Where's that link?

Edit: http://slickdeals.net/f/5963306-300-Ripples-XRP-free-with-Like-on-Facebook-page-Ripple-is-virtual-currency-similar-to-Bitcoins?

Damn, I don't have a facebook account either.

Thanks for sharing that link hopefully they send me my 300 XPRs for my like I will post if they do

and lol no i wish rippln was my project I just stumbled upon it from some of my friends promoting it who really have no clue on what is it they don't even know what a XPR is yet they will find out soon enough though

Ripple's basic protocol seems fairly sound in this manner.


XRP has to do with preventing the network from being overloaded by transactions. It has nothing to do with reaching consensus.


Your response has nothing to do with his question. Please quit using this thread to spam your bullshit.

Can you link me to this discussion please? Want to see if they do it the way I presume they do it.

https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus

There is already a fair alternative.
It's called Bitcoin  ;D ;)

Thanks for the link. I was presuming there was earlier discussion on this forum.

It's all good. I've been researching Ripple technical specs and it is f***ing awesome. Ripple has already implement most of BitCoin's wish list.

No I'm not referring to monetary policy. Just the technical under pinnings. You could fork the ripple code base and recreate the existing bitcoin transaction tree inside it. You could create exactly the same BitCoin rules with added internal exchange trading. No more MtGox. Oh yeah, and you wouldn't need to burn up CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, ASICs. You could just award the mining transactions to the nodes validating the transactions.

yeah i tiink is an scam, i dont know how the people are spending BTC on it, soon there will be worthless

Bitcoin is a currency. Ripple is a payment network. There's a huge difference.

It would be pretty great if you would pull this off. I've had the same idea but I have nowhere near the ability to pull it off.
I support Ripple because, hats off to them, they are making something necessary actually happen.

We have tried to come up with a way to do this and failed. If anyone has any suggestions for a way to do this, I'd love to hear it. The basic problem is that there's no good way to figure out who is "really" a validator in a way that everyone can agree on.

Ripple++ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=202869.0)

I wold really like to see a fair alternative to ripple,

repost from newbie area

In my mind what makes Bitcoin beautiful is not just the genius crypto, it is just as much the balance of the different incentives that encourages community participation. Lets take a look at these:

1 .Mining incentivices participation in network infrastructure creation and participation, both now and in the future. Now mostly for the reward of finding new blocks 25 Btc, but also in the future for claiming the spent fees as a reward for finding the next block.

2. Participation and use of Bitcoins incentivises the increased use of fees for transactions, the genius of having a block interval of approx 10 minutes. Increases the likelihood of people spending fees to speed up the transaction witch again supports the incentives in point 1. Taking Litecoin where transactions are much faster, I see the potential problem that incentives for paying fees will not be there in the same way witch in turn could weaken the incentives for keeping the infrastructure up.

3. For a bitcoin holder there is also the self preserving incentive to participate just to protect the value of your bitcoins. This holds true I guess for many if not all crypto currencies, but I have a feeling that the influence of this effect will be affected by the strength and success of the other incentives.

When it comes to ripple I can only see the influence of point 3 witch effect in turn is minimized by the lack of incentives 1 and 2. This will in my opinion likely be leading to tipping the balance of incentives in the direction of OpenCoin, witch already from the beginning needs to build most of the infrastructure to get it up and running. If this assumption holds true this will definitely increase the likelihood of OpenCoin gaining way to much control of the infrastructure.     

Hashcash that scales with Moore's law would be a solution in my opinion.

Sometimes I think you are taunting me...
I actually came up with an algorithm for this when discussing [SteadyCoin] consensus building. It's somewhere back in my post history. Ripple's consensus building is slightly different but I can summarize my original logic. Maybe it can be modified for ripple.

The validation/consensus logic was a variant of BitCoin's block consensus absent the PoW calculation. Each node executes a sequence of deterministic steps:
1) Generate a "candidate set" of validators.
2) Choose a primary validator from the set using a distributed random number generator.
3) Broadcast the primary validator's block to the other validators for confirmation.
4) Each confirming validator broadcasts an "Announce" transaction signaling they are now building upon this new block.
5) Each validator listens for Announce transactions from others on its personal known-nodes-list (Ripple's UNL) to confirm consensus has been reached.

---
1) A validator is in the candidate set if its "Announce" transaction is present in the current building block and in each of the preceding (N) blocks. [Good validators are consistent]

2) At each block interval (X seconds), each node chooses its primary validator by:
  a) Ordering and hashing all received transactions since the previous block.
  b) Comparing that hash to candidate set nodes using a distance function.
  c) The closest node becomes the primary validator.

3) If a node calculates itself to be the primary validator, it completes its block by generating any coinbase transactions and broadcasts its signed block hash.

(Theoretically, if every node was well connected and persistent they would all receive the same transactions, calculate the same primary validator, and be able to complete the final block according to pre-specified coinbase rules.)

4a) If the proper hash arrives from your expected primary validator, then "Announce" your confirmation by issuing a signed transaction that builds upon that block.
4b) If the proper hash doesn't arrive (or is invalid) presume the primary validator to have FAILED in its duties. Remove its "announce" transaction from your current building block set [(N) block candidate-validator penalty] and repeat 1-4.

5a) If a majority of the nodes on your personal known-nodes-list "announce" on the same block as you, all is well.
5b) If a majority of announcements aren't receive, then you are partitioned from the main network. STOP external trading.
5c) If, however, a majority "announce" on a block you are not expecting, then you must presume either you have FAILED (missed some transactions) or something malicious is happening.
  c1) Request the majority block and validate it.
  c2) Identify transaction differences between yours and the majority block.
  c3) If you missed transactions, announce on the majority block and continue.
  c4) If the majority block is missing transactions, announce on the majority block, re-broadcast the excluded transactions, and continue.
  c5) If there a double spends or conflicting transactions, Broadcast malicious user WARNING and halt any related external transactions.
  c6) If re-broadcasted transactions (c4) fail to confirm in the next block, Broadcast validator DoS WARNING.

Because of its (UNL) equivalent the system converges similarly to Ripple.
---
CoinBase reward/mining transactions can be assigned to validators using any pre-agreed upon rule set.

[StableCoin] dynamically adjusts the generation amount and distributes new coins to combat price instability. It doesn't have a default reward for validators.

BitCoin could use its "winner take all" rule to award all 25 BTC to the primary validator. The randomness of (2) above would spread the coins around over time.

Alternately, each new block reward could be spread among all the candidate validator nodes mining pool style.

Sybil validator attacks could be mitigated by either 1) requiring candidate validators to be non-anonymous (i.e. Ripple's UNL), or by 2) requiring candidate validators to put up a forfeitable (4b) fidelity bond.

  

While I believe this can be made to work from a technical angle, I'm very nervous about how well it will work in the real world because of the incentives it creates. We want validators to have a strong incentive to broaden their UNL to avoid a network split. In this scheme, each validator you add to your UNL costs you money, and there's a much greater risk that the set of validators will be a small group that refuses to listen to anyone outside the group and presents a "take it or leave it" choice to the outside world.

Assuming you want the mining rate to be relatively fixed, every node except the one that "mines" a block now has an incentive to prevent a consensus being reached on that block because that's one more reward it won't get rather than a chance at that reward. Bitcoin doesn't have this problem because every miner has a strong incentive to build on the longest chain. I'm not sure how you could replicate that in this scheme.

Understood. This may be needlessly long.
TL;DR Summery: The KNL/UNL should optimally be the "non-anonymous" subset of non-malicious nodes.

See below for details. Especially the end where it mentions "fidelity bonds".
------
In my original "known-nodes-list" concept the KNL served more as a sanity check. If all your friends disappeared, you are probably forked (5b). Stop transacting and figure out where everyone went. Possibly even notify the HUMAN operator.

The role of UNL you describe, is actually handled by the validator "candidate set". That's where every time you add someone to the candidate set it splits the pie into smaller slices. Theoretically, it should have a set of well define rules that all other validators are required to follow. (i.e. 1) If they've been present, and 2) they are randomly chosen, and 3) their block validates, then 4a) everyone has to accept it.) <-- BitCoin style consensus.

So, if more people show up to validate you, theoretically, have to accept them. Those who don't accept a valid block are supposed to be presumed MALICIOUS (badly written 4b). The trouble of course is at the edges. What about transaction mismatches. Are those accidental (5c3-4) or malicious?. Certainly, if someone doesn't included a "slam-dunk" previously missed transaction (5c6) it should be considered malicious.

Here you are talking about the (4b) malicious node case. You are certainly right, my description is hand wavy on what to do about deliberately non-compliant nodes. Believe it or not I was attempting to SIMPLIFY the description. :)

The set of non-malicious validating nodes is the "candidate set of validators" minus your personally known malicious nodes. (4b, 5c6) Your KNL/UNL should optimally be the "non-anonymous" subset of non-malicious nodes.

The set of anonymous validator nodes needs to be policed using a forfeitable fidelity bond. In this case a fidelity bond is a transaction that sends a predefined amount of a validator's coins to an output claimable by "ANYONE". No non-malicious node should allow anyone to claim those coins, except for three specific circumstances.
1) The sending validator can claim his own coins. This results in him taking himself out of the validator candidate set.
2) If the chosen validator (2) produces a non-validating or DoS block, the next-chosen non-anonymous validator can claim the FAILED validator's fidelity bond.
3) If a validator fails to come to consensus and "announce" within the next (Y) blocks, the next-chosen non-anonymous validator can claim his fidelity bond.

There is no automated mechanism to anonymously reclaim a lost fidelity bond. The bond can only be claimed by a human personally appealing to a human consensus of non-anonymous validators.